Norton 360

[wishwasnothere]

As a newbie who has struggled with Norton before, I reluctantly decided to install Norton 360 I purchased almost a year ago at Staples.  It is ver. 5.0 that I installed.  After 174MB of virus def. and software updates, it has proven to be the nightmare I expected.  My win XP media center ed.,sp3, running IE 8 in a desktop with 1GB of RAM, a 250GB HD with a 2006 vintage Athlon Processor has slowed down, constantly reads High CPU and Memory usage and locks up when accessing heavy-duty sites, ie, The Blaze.  Norton provides no printed instructions that would serve average users.  The terms used in much of the Internet support are ambiguous and not simply defined, making them incomprehensible to many users.  Much of what Norton is good at is showing charts and data about what is happening and going wrong, not much about causes and fixing so the user understands.  The charts are useless.  I do not need or want the lengthy reports.  I am a retired mechanical engineer that has much trouble with this product with no place to go.  Symantec's work may be useful to Systems Engineers but fall far short for the poor guy or gal just wanting basic protections.  I want it to do its job without hardly any other effects on my computer. Dispense with all the doodads that you decided to include in the software or make it easy to shut off. If Norton's system is fairly large, then make it possible to operate from on external drive or some other means. 

I want to eliminate everything I beleive is not essential to my computer operation.  This software is bloated and there is not easy way to understand trimming it down properly and safely.

I used MS support when it was free and person to person contact.  It has evolved very far from those days and I understand some of the reasons for it.  But, today, MS still provides information that makes sense on the internet though only an expert can diagnose difficult problems.  Norton started off as very easy to install, use and get help. Now, it is a virtual hell.  I am only a very short distance away from elimination of the name Norton from my vocabulary

I am hoping someone can provide me with a path to follow.  I know that I will not get a clear easy to read and understand instruction book.  I need to know the reasons why Norton 360 brought the computer that I used comfortably one day down to wanting to use it for target practice and to think that I spent hard-earned money for this to happen.

This is a matter of misrepresentation by not warning buyers that they can experience conflicts with other software, slowdowns if RAM and CPU is older designs, aggravation trying to get real support. etc etc etc.  I am good a reading warnings like this but I could not find any

[dickevans Super RootKit Eradicator]

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wishwasnothere wrote:

As a newbie who has struggled with Norton before, I reluctantly decided to install Norton 360 I purchased almost a year ago at Staples.  It is ver. 5.0 that I installed.  After 174MB of virus def. and software updates, it has proven to be the nightmare I expected.  My win XP media center ed.,sp3, running IE 8 in a desktop with 1GB of RAM, a 250GB HD with a 2006 vintage Athlon Processor has slowed down, constantly reads High CPU and Memory usage and locks up when accessing heavy-duty sites, ie, The Blaze.  Norton provides no printed instructions that would serve average users.  The terms used in much of the Internet support are ambiguous and not simply defined, making them incomprehensible to many users.  Much of what Norton is good at is showing charts and data about what is happening and going wrong, not much about causes and fixing so the user understands.  The charts are useless.  I do not need or want the lengthy reports.  I am a retired mechanical engineer that has much trouble with this product with no place to go.  Symantec's work may be useful to Systems Engineers but fall far short for the poor guy or gal just wanting basic protections.  I want it to do its job without hardly any other effects on my computer. Dispense with all the doodads that you decided to include in the software or make it easy to shut off. If Norton's system is fairly large, then make it possible to operate from on external drive or some other means. 

I want to eliminate everything I believe is not essential to my computer operation.  This software is bloated and there is not easy way to understand trimming it down properly and safely.

I used MS support when it was free and person to person contact.  It has evolved very far from those days and I understand some of the reasons for it.  But, today, MS still provides information that makes sense on the internet though only an expert can diagnose difficult problems.  Norton started off as very easy to install, use and get help. Now, it is a virtual hell.  I am only a very short distance away from elimination of the name Norton from my vocabulary

I am hoping someone can provide me with a path to follow.  I know that I will not get a clear easy to read and understand instruction book.  I need to know the reasons why Norton 360 brought the computer that I used comfortably one day down to wanting to use it for target practice and to think that I spent hard-earned money for this to happen.

This is a matter of misrepresentation by not warning buyers that they can experience conflicts with other software, slowdowns if RAM and CPU is older designs, aggravation trying to get real support. etc etc etc.  I am good a reading warnings like this but I could not find any

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Welcome,

I'm sure that I don't have the answers to all of your questions. I can only hope to provide you wilt a little light to start you on the path to a solution.

You have a current subscription. I think that v6, the current version, may be a bit easier on your limited resources. You can do that by clicking on the word support and then click on new version check.

I'm not positive but I think even Microsoft recommends 2GB of RAM for XP. This lack will indeed slow things down. The high CPU and memory are, I expect the program having to use disk space for page files because memory isn't available.

I am not aware of any features that you can eliminate. There are several that can be disabled, which you will see as you go through the various screens after you click on settings.

If you can stick with us, we're all volunteers here [there are a few employees (their names are in bold red letters) who will also assist] It may not the most efficient method of getting the help you need but that's the best we have to offer.

[yank Trojan Terminator]

Hi wishwasnothere,

I must ask which antivirus program were you using prior to installing Norton 360? 

How was that program removed?  Did N 360 install remove it, or did you remove it by uninstalling in Add/Remove Programs and then run the removal tool for that product?

Do you currently have any other security programs installed which might be running in real time?  Such as any other AV, MalwareBytesAnti Malware Pro, SuperAntiSpyware Pro, SpyBot S&D (with Tea timer running).  Plese also verify that Windows Defender is turned off.

All that said I have run Norton 360 on a 2002 model HP with XP SP3 and 528 MB of Ram, so I think there is more going on than Norton slowing your system down.

We'll be waiting for the addtional informatio.

[wishwasnothere]

Human contact on this forum is comforting and I very much appreciate you taking the time to write on the subject of my concerns.   Now, I find the machine hanging-up when I attempt to start again from hibernate status.  This desktop is used only about 6 months each year in one of my residences.  Last year I installed Norton IS 2011 on this machine which had acquired a worm infection and N-IS with its tools helped but also caused similar slowing/hangups/lockups that I experienced after installation of it.  When I recently started using this machine, the  N IS had expired and was completely "shut-off" other than their repeated reminders. I used the machine for a month, being very careful and using MS firewall/pop-up/browse protections and Netzeo, my ISP for virus/worm protections and 128 bit encryption for secure info.

I was pleased that the Norton IS with its problems were mostly non-existent.  But, I was a bit uncomfortable and I had purchased N-360 for 3 machines last Nov. so I decided to install it..  The install removed the N-IS that was loaded.

I would like to install the N-360 v.6 upgrade if I knew something about the improvements or changes.  If you can provide some input I would like that before I download the upgrade.  In earlier days, Norton would leave the virus protection in place after expiration, with no ability to upgrade defs., That appeared logical in that you purchased the software with installed defs that were already installed, so why should they be cut off upon expiration.  

[wishwasnothere]

Thanks for writing.  please read my reply to Dick for some answers to your comments. 

None of the spy, malware, defender software is on this machine.  The N-360 install turned off MS Firewall which I checked.  Perhaps the worm I experienced early 2011 is still operating but with Norton IS last year I would get repeated notices of attempted attacks and so far, with N-360.  I have not seen this.

High CPU usage, near 100% during slowdowns, usually occurswhen loading a content-intensive website.  Do you have some ideas about what causes spikes in CPU and if anything short of a new computer/processor,  can relieve CPU usage?

[wishwasnothere]

HI again

After my reply I checked on Windows Defender.  Surprised that it was on this maching and turned on.

I proceeded to turn it off and will wait to see if any improvements.  The history on WD did not show any hits so it did not seem to be doing anything worthwhile.

[dickevans Super RootKit Eradicator]

Windows Defender is used by Windows and must remain but, not active. Microsoft Security Essentials must be uninstalled as it does conflict with Norton programs. The Norton installer usually disables defender and asks you to uninstall essentials before it can continue.